Schmidt, Anton Maria

SCHMIDT, ANTON MARIA. - Swiss politician and general from the Canton of Uri, b. 9 Nov. 1792, d. 1880.

After taking part in 1823, with the rank of captain, in the Spanish campaign in the French ranks, he was "Landmann" and "Landeshauptmann" of Uri from 1824 to 1838, assuming during the Sonderbund war the command of a brigade of the Catholic cantons. He then entered the service of the Holy See and in 1855 became colonel of the first foreign regiment. He thus had occasion to distinguish himself by routing on 21 June 1859 the innovators, who had seized the city of Perugia (v.).

The following year, during the Piedmontese invasion of the Papal State, he was at the head of the first brigade with the rank of general. His having lingered between 10 and 13 Sept. in suppressing in the district of Città della Pieve the work of columns of volunteers coming from Tuscany kept him in the dark about the outbreak of hostilities with the royal troops and about the march on Perugia of the army corps of Gen. Fanti, preventing him from joining the bulk of the pontifical forces, which Gen. De La Moricière (v.) was already concentrating on the Spoleto-Poligno-Ancona line. Having rapidly returned to Perugia on the morning of the 14th, he found it already hemmed in by a large body of Piedmontese regulars and barely managed, after bitter fighting through the streets, to shut himself up in the Rocca Paolina. The resistance offered there with deliberate firmness by S. to Fanti, despite the overwhelming disproportion of means and men, for the whole day, had the not negligible effect of allowing De La Moricière's rearguards to cross the Apennines at forced marches without obstacles. Transferred as a prisoner to Piedmont, S. then returned to Switzerland with a passport issued to him by Cavour.

Paolo Dalla Torre